The truth is - healing is hard.
Healing from emotional trauma, healing from childhood trauma, healing from breakups, healing patterns of unhealthy relating, learning to stand on our own two feet and moving out of a state of codependency, doing the work we need to do to change ‘self destructive’ habits, getting to a place where we no longer rely upon coping or stimulating methods to get us through the day and working to become more grounded in our true selves - this is all work that is really, at the end of the day, oftentimes heavy, extremely emotionally draining, dark, lonely, scary and confusing.
Becoming aware of our issues, our patterns, where the roots of our behaviors, thoughts and beliefs lie and seeing the overarching picture of what we are going to need to do to get ourselves out of where we are to where we want to go is one thing - but actually DOING that work, actually WALKING that path and challenging ourselves in all the ways we are going to be challenged in order to integrate what happened to us is fully another.
In this life, as much as we may want to believe something else - most of the time there isn’t an easy, fast, painless, straightforward or otherwise simple path to feeling better and living in a new way.
There’s no straight shot from pain to pleasure, from wound to healed - and at the end of the day when we’re hurting, tired, when we’ve already been trying for months, years or even decades to fix ourselves and heal, it can feel like the journey ahead of us is just going to be too much.
If you’ve ever gotten to the place where you feel like doing the work that you’re going to have to do to get better just feels like too much - I want you to know that you’re not alone.
If you’ve ever gotten to a place where you’re concerned that you’re going to put in all this effort into healing, into growing and expanding yourself and that there’s no guarantee that it’s actually going to work - and this makes you feel like you don’t even want to try or take the risk, you’re not alone and there’s nothing wrong with you.
If you fear that the journey is going to take too long, and that even if you DO pursue getting better you fear that it will be too late to enjoy your life afterwards because the path is going to take too long to walk so you may as well give up - I hear you.
If you feel like you’ve already done SO MUCH to try to heal, like you’ve taken so many steps and followed to many different protocols and pieces of advice and still feel like you’ve made little to no progress and thus feel like maybe there ISN’T an answer or way for you - again, you’re not alone.
If you look at what you think life will be like once you’re healed and feel like it may not be worth the effort, like it may be better to just stay where you are and enjoy what you know you can without putting in all that work only to have something that may only be slightly better - I see you.
This is what we’re going to dive into today.
How do we approach ourselves when we are in a state where we really, genuinely don’t WANT to heal? How do we move forward when at the end to the day, most parts or all parts of ourselves are simply ‘over it’ and want to stay where we are?
There is a path here, and it may not be what you think.
Permission, Permission, Permission
As hard as this is going to be for most of us, when we are in this state of really just NOT wanting to do what is in front of us, when we are in a place of overwhelm, fatigue, not being sure if we want to do what we have to do, not being sure that doing what we have to do will be worth it - the first thing we need is PERMISSION to feel how we feel.
For many of us, the instinct is going to be to try to force our way forward. There will be messaging coming from outside of us that tells us that it’s NOT ok to give up, to not want to heal, to not want to ‘do the work’ - and these messages can be so deeply ingrained in us that they actually start to feel and sound like they are coming directly from us.
There can be a real fear that if we really ‘let ourselves’ feel what we feel, that we will end up in a situation where we genuinely DO give up entirely - and of course this is a really scary thought for most of us to consider.
And.
Most of the time the reality is, that if we are in a place where this is how we feel, we feel this way FOR A REASON.
We feel how we feel for a reason that ISN’T that we suck, but is based on the experiences we’ve had in life and based on the pain we’ve been through.
We’re not reaching these states of wanting to give up or not being fully convinced that healing is going to be worth it simply because we want to destroy our own lives or the lives of those around us. We’re not being selfish or lazy or otherwise ‘bad’. We’re not broken, shameful or in some way deserving of being shamed or rejected.
Rather, we are trying to protect ourselves from PAIN. Usually, we are already IN pain, and the ways that we have attempted to get out of that pain in the past either haven’t worked or in some situations have actually made the pain worse.
There is a REASON we feel how we feel, and this needs to be seen, loved, validated and supported before we try to force our way into any kind of change.
As hard as this is going to be, we need to be given a chance to express WHAT has hurt about all our past attempts at healing, we need to be validated in our fatigue, our overwhelm, our doubt and our fear. We need to be given space to feel what we feel.
Because we aren’t going to ‘get rid of’ how we feel.
We aren’t going to convince ourselves to feel better or to feel differently.
Rather, what we actually need to do is make space for ourselves to process how we feel in this moment, and we have to make it SAFE that we feel how we feel.
We need to be able to express in some form WHY we are feeling how we are - and rather than being told that we did something wrong, that we didn’t try hard enough, that we ‘should’ have had a different experience, that it’s our fault that our past attempts at healing didn’t work or any other shame based or denial based response - we need to just be given love, support and validation.
It makes sense that you feel how you feel.
You have likely experienced things that led you to feeling this way.
You’re not making it up.
You’re not weak or lazy or broken.
You’re responding to a past that hurt and to a past that hasn’t led you to where you want to be - you don’t feel good now and you want to.
That is all valid.
So can you make it ok that you feel how you feel?
Can you explore what you’ve been through that has led you to feeling how you feel and can you validate that?
Can you empathize with yourself?
Also, I want to validate that in our world, it’s likely that you will have a hard time finding others who are able to actually empathize with you and your experience. Most people are going to tell you that you have to keep trying, that giving up is not an option, that you’re somehow weak/lazy/broken/bad if you don’t want to keep pushing yourself.
This is because we live in a culture where MOST people don’t have the emotional capacity/resilience themselves to be with these heavy emotions. To go to these dark places and not feel like something is wrong.
Most people will have an instinct to offer advice, to try to convince you to see things in a different way, to tell you that you’re being selfish or to shame you in some way. This is a reflection of their own inability to face that tough stuff of life - not an actual reflection of you or the truth of who you are and what you’re experiencing.
I’m sorry that we live in a world that doesn’t make space for these dark things to be processed in a loving and compassionate way. I am sorry that you may have to do this on your own in spite of what others are saying and in spite of what culture says.
But you are worthy of the space you need.
You are worthy of validation.
You are worthy of being seen in the pain you’ve experienced vs. being blamed for it or having people try to ‘fix’ you.
You feel how you feel for a reason, and that needs to be given space first and foremost.
THEN we can start to move forward.
Letting Go Of What Wasn’t Working
From there, as we allow ourselves to validate how we feel and we look at the path we’ve walked so far and how it’s made us FEEL, the results it actually got us and the results it DIDN’T get us - we can start moving past any stories that tell us that the reason the path didn’t work is because we suck, we did it wrong, we are shameful, we are too lazy or otherwise that we messed it up - and we can start to investigate into WHAT felt bad about what we tried.
We can start to critically look at the tools we’ve tried, the steps we’ve taken, the attempts we’ve made - and from a place of self compassion and assuming the best about ourselves we can start to look for where the PATH we have taken in the past may have been the thing that was ‘wrong’ vs. seeing OURSELVES as having ‘done it wrong.’
In other words, we can step out of that assumption that the tools we’ve been given in the past were all right, true and real, and that the only reason we haven’t ‘healed yet’ is because we did something wrong/failed/suck and into assessing if perhaps the tools we have been handed were in fact the problem all along.
We can start to work from a place of assuming we were doing our best, that we were sincere in our attempts to move forward, that of COURSE we WANTED to feel better - and then we can start to ask ourselves:
- ‘What DIDN’T feel good about the tools I was using before?’
- ‘What did the tools I was offered promise me, and did they deliver on those promises?’
- ‘Was there a constant narrative that if the tool didn’t work that this meant that I was doing something wrong, or was there room in the teaching for the idea that perhaps the tool I was using may not have been right for ME?’
- ‘Was DID work about what I have tried in the past? Were there any tools that did help me make progress or that did feel supportive?’
- ‘Was there anything I’ve tried in the past that felt SUPPORTIVE vs. like I had to white-knuckle my way into doing it?’
- ‘Was there any tool I have used in the past that worked to a degree? Maybe not all the way, but there WAS some benefit in it?’
- ‘Was there any way that perhaps I was being told that the path ‘should’ look a certain way, and in reality it’s just going to look a different way? Is it possible that the idea that I ‘should’ be instantly healed or healed in a session or 30 days is actually the thing that’s causing me to feel like I failed? Is it possible that if I keep doing what I am or was doing, and focusing on the GOOD it makes me feel in the MOMENT, that this will lead me to where I want to go EVENTUALLY?’
What we want to do after we’ve validated ourselves and made it safe for us to feel how we feel about wanting to give up/not wanting to try anymore is actually give ourselves room to critically look at how the tools we’ve used in the past either did or didn’t work.
We also want to question the narratives we have around how long healing is ‘supposed to take’ and see if perhaps we have been placing an unreasonable expectation on ourselves.
We want to make space for the journey simply being longer or more complex than we thought it would be.
We want to open up to the things that DID feel good, that DID feel supportive - even if they didn’t solve the WHOLE issue - and see how we can BUILD on those foundations - knowing that healing is going to be something that comes one step at a time, through skill building and with LOTS of different tools - rather than through one magical thing or one step.
We want to be open to the idea that if a healing modality doesn’t feel SUPPORTIVE in THIS moment - if it’s all pain, and no amount of relief or pleasure NOW - that that likely means it’s not the actual path. There should be good feelings in the MOMENT when we are doing what is truly healing for us - or at least feelings of catharsis. There needs to be a positive benefit that keeps us coming back to our practices - otherwise it’s likely that our practices aren’t actually taking us where we want to go.
We want to form a realistic view of healing, and we want to give ourselves space to FEEL and ACKNOWLEDGE what things worked and helped us and what didn’t - and we want to start to make room for the idea that there’s no one answer or step - but rather that there will be MANY tools and MANY steps - and that’s how it is SUPPOSED to be. We aren’t failing if we aren’t getting it done with ONE thing.
We want to acknowledge what DIDN’T work - without going into shame. To be able to say ‘yes, this thing promised me ‘x’ result and didn’t deliver. I did it to the best of my ability and it was really something that was going to help me, it would have! I didn’t fail, the tool failed, and now I can let that go and open up to something else.
Finally we want to make room for the idea that there may be things we don’t know about yet. That if we have tried all we know to gry, that this doesn’t mean we’ve tried EVERYTHING. We want to allow ourselves to be curious about what else may be out there, vs. assuming that if what we know hasn’t worked, nothing will.
Compassion and curiosity. These are the next phases.
Letting Hope Rise Naturally
Once we have given ourselves complete permission to feel how we feel, and once we have made it safe to process WHY we feel how we feel, and we’ve validated those feelings deeply - generally speaking most of us are going to find that in this we NATURALLY start to feel differently.
Most of us are going to discover that we don’t actually have to force ourselves. We don’t have to push ourselves. We don’t have to be hard on ourselves and we don’t have to shame ourselves.
Rather we are going to find that once we have been given adequate space to feel and process, that eventually little seeds of hope and a different perspective start to sprout.
We are going to move out of those shame, blame and guilt stories that have been wreaking havoc on our capacity to really assess and judge the tools we were using and what did and didn’t work about them - and we are then going to be able to come into a more sober mindset.
A mindset that is going to give us the ability to move into a more reasonable way to interact with healing and growth, and a mindset that will actually free us from the trap of believing that healing is supposed to be quick and easy, and that will free us from the idea that there is a ‘one thing’ that we should be able to find that will magically transform our entire lives into something better than what it is.
In this space, I want to make it very clear - there are going to be lots of people who continue to tell you that healing, growth, change and evolution CAN happen in an ‘overnight’ transformation kind of way. There will be people who tell you that healing is just a ‘choice’ you make. That you are creating your own reality and thus it’s up to you to see things differently and thus manifest a different life.
People will tell you that you can heal chronic health issues with a cleanse. They will tell you that there are specific meditations or mindset techniques you can use to instantly change your thoughts and erase all of your trauma. People who say that you can do a somatic exercise or two and release all your past so that you can just exist in the bliss of your present.
I want to remind you that this just isn’t reality.
There is no single step to healing, there is no one tool that will work overnight, there is no straight shot to solving our problems.
Rather, we need to adjust our expectations so that are are able to actually walk the path that is set out before us - a path where we are going to have to see everything as just a tool we are adding to our toolbox, and where we are able to see that everything we do is either just going to be a step on the path, or it’s not going to be a step - but there is no silver bullet.
Also we want to remember this - how something feels NOW is a huge indicator of whether or not it’s actually healing.
A tool or a path that is actually supportive for you is going to be giving you positive results RIGHT NOW. It should not be all torture, all discipline, all ‘just get through this and at the END you will feel better’. When we are into techniques like this, chances are we are using a path that either isn’t actually healing us at all but rather is just stimulating us OR we are into something that is simply not sustainable for us in the long term - which means even if it gives results in the short term, we’re not going to be able to sustain those results - meaning we’re going to end up back where we were before.
We want to start to choose our healing and growth techniques based on how they feel now. Does what you’re doing actually improve your CURRENT life experience? Does it support you in feeling better in your day to day life? Does it help you to ground yourself? Does it feel like something you can see yourself doing in the long term, not just pushing yourself to ‘get through it?’
If the answer is no to any of the above questions, I would challenge you to consider that what you’re doing may not be the thing for you - either right now or ever.
How you feel WHILE you’re doing it matters. It shouldn’t be all about results ‘over there.’
If we can shift out of the idea that something is supposed to work RIGHT NOW and be the be-all-end-all - and if we can shift OUT of the idea that if we just do something that feels awful for a short period of time that this is going to somehow magically transform us - and we can get into the mindset that healing is going to be a process, it’s going to require many steps and that if what we are doing now doesn’t feel good that may mean we want to change our strategy - in THIS we are going to start to find our true path.
Which should center around this - what actually feels SUPPORTIVE for me?
This is the biggest key - stepping out of trying to ‘fix’ ourselves, stepping out of shaming and blaming and guilting ourselves and stepping out of the mindset that tells us that if we aren’t healing right now or if the tool we are using isn’t the be-all-end-all it’s nothing - and into the one step at a time, following what feels good and supportive - in THIS we are going to find our natural motivation.
So what if this path was about validating you, supporting you and finding one step at a time that feels GOOD to take?
THAT is what the healing path should be all about.
THIS is how we move through that resistance.
Validate, process, figure out what wasn’t working. Getting out of shame and blame. Letting go of fixing or rushing and stepping into what feels SUPPORTIVE for us at this moment.
One step at a time.
You can do this.
<3
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